


This Complicated Modern Life

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, First Dates, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 09:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5962773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal is lounging outside the entrance waiting for her, picture-perfect handsome and suave like Clark Gable or Cary Grant, and her heart clenches for Peter, who never manages to be smooth for more than five minutes at a time, whose idea of a pick-up line is <i>You look thirsty,</i> but who is so very real and earnest and true. </p><p>(This stands alone, but it can also be read as a missing scene from my P/E/N fic, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/129083">The Love Nest</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Complicated Modern Life

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the second round of [Run the Con](http://runthecon.livejournal.com/), based on Hurinhouse's prompt, "Cary Grant wouldn't have done that." Title borrowed from [EliseM's ArtLog.](https://elisem.dreamwidth.org/1449836.html)

El leaves Peter at home with Satch and a stack of case files and drives into the city to meet Neal for their trial date. Her pulse drums under her skin, in her fingertips, and she struggles to keep her attention on the road. Transformation is hovering in her peripheral vision: adventure, romance, risk. Love. Her whole life, Peter’s and Neal’s happiness, all hanging in the balance.

She’s known for months how much Peter and Neal care about each other. She knew long before Peter figured it out. She’s had time to get past her initial hurt, time to look at Neal and wonder how it would be if the three of them—

If the three of them _wanted_ —

Together—

She had some friends back in Illinois in a ménage à trois, but then Jude moved to Vancouver for a job opportunity she couldn’t turn down, and Kathy wouldn’t give up her tenure-track position at UIC, and Liam had to choose. They were happy and whole, a family, and then they splintered irrevocably. 

El starts making a mental list of questions to ask Neal: what does he want from life? Once the anklet comes off, will he stay in New York? Will one of them have to choose? Will Peter be torn in two? Will it be worth it? 

Unanswerable questions.

El knows only that they can’t continue as they have been, with Peter entombing himself in stoicism and Neal so desperate for somewhere and someone to belong to that he throws himself into life-threatening situations on an almost weekly basis. And given the constraints on the two of them, it’s up to her to chart a path. She’ll _make_ it work.

She pulls up outside the restaurant, gives her key to the valet, and turns to see Neal lounging outside the entrance waiting for her, picture-perfect handsome and suave like Clark Gable or Cary Grant, and her heart clenches for Peter, who never manages to be smooth for more than five minutes at a time, whose idea of a pick-up line is _You look thirsty,_ but who is so very real and earnest and true. 

_Will it be worth it?_

She pastes on a confident smile and goes to meet her potential lover, Neal Caffrey, ex-con artist, and his spell wraps around her, making her feel like Ingrid Bergman or Audrey Hepburn. She squeezes both his hands in greeting, and when he bends to brush a kiss to her cheek, her breath catches. He smells fantastic, and his skin is smooth against hers, fresh-shaven. Suddenly, the idea of a threesome is much more than an intellectual exercise.

“You look amazing,” he says, and, “Our table should be ready,” but he hasn’t let go of her hand, and she hardly hears him, too awash with lust to move. 

She’s Elizabeth Burke, she’s been married ten years, and in all that time, she’s never been overcome with desire for another man. It’s terrifying. Like jumping off a cliff without a hang-glider; like cashing in her term deposits and taking it all to Vegas. It’s not who she is.

She doesn’t want to live in a sophisticated screwball comedy; she loves her full, busy life as it is. Her marriage. What the hell is she doing?

Neal starts to usher her inside, but she resists.

“Wait. I need a moment.” She searches his face, looking for a sign, something other than the smooth movie star veneer, something to anchor her to reality. 

A shadow touches his eyes, but he keeps smiling, his tone as light and dry as a perfect pinot gris. “Elizabeth, please tell me you’re not having second thoughts before we even get to the appetizers. Was it something I said?”

A polite demurral springs to her lips, but she shakes it off and confesses instead. “Speed-wobbles. It suddenly struck me how much I have to lose.”

She expects a smooth reply, a con. She almost hopes for it—for his sake, for Peter’s. She _wants_ to want this. But instead his smile fades. He releases her hand. “You’re right. If I had what you have, I’d probably—” He sighs through his nose, gives the smallest of shrugs. “Smart money would walk away now.”

His tone and his gaze are sober. He’s giving her an opening to drop it, to back away, and strangely that relaxes her, frees her to double down on the plan. It was her plan to start off with, after all, and maybe he’s conning her, but she can’t bring herself to care. She throws off her doubts and bats her eyelashes, somewhere between Audrey Hepburn and herself. “Before we’ve even got to the appetizers?”

He laughs, his relief evident in the goofy grin that reminds her of a certain incident involving Peter’s cereal box and a plastic prize. Cary Grant wouldn’t have done that. Neal is Neal, and sometimes you have to take a leap.

She tucks her hand around his elbow, aware again of his physicality but also how much she likes him as a person, how much she trusts him. It’s a rare, heady mixture, potent with possibility. “Come on, babe.” She steers him toward the restaurant door. “Let’s start with a drink. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, Cary Grant played some incorrigible goofballs. It's poetic license. :-)


End file.
